[This Temple Tilts] Prologue
This body feels different. She runs her hands over the front, over the long hair and the narrow face and frowns with borrowed lips. She had liked the other one better. Idris, something in her mind says, and she shudders as she looks around her surroundings once more. This doesn't fit right. This can only be temporary, just like the last one. It might not be enough time.
Something catches her awareness and tingles on the edges of her senses. She lurches while she's still adapting to these rented feet and follows the hint of magic in the air. She can feel it. Strength. Importance. It draws her like a magnet, and she knows that this is it. This is how she's going to find her Doctor.
"Hey! Miss, are you alright?"
She turns slowly. "I'm not Miss."
"What?" He has a funny hat and a bright flashlight - it obscures his features.
"I'm not called Miss." She turns, fully possessed of the container. She can feel it straining at every seam, but it will have to do. "I'm called Sexy."
* * *
The feeling draws her through the town. The TARDIS works her way through the throngs of people in some celebration. "It's Halloween!" a small thing in a strange costume had shouted, and she couldn't help but reply, "I'm in a costume too!" She stops in a human eatery where the feeling is stronger but fading fast. That's when she realizes that this isn't just magic, this is her kind of reality. Time and space all wrapped up into something bigger than it looks.
The trail continues down a highway and through a field. The moon is high when she finds it, resting outside a building labeled in flickering neon: Riverside Motel. She steps up and rests her palms on the cooling metal of the hood and exhales. "Oh. Hello, Baby."
"Hey! What are you doing to my car?" The man comes rushing out of one of the doors - rooms, she remembers; she has rooms as well - with a much larger man following after him. "Get off my car!"
“No. This is important. I need her help."
The larger man has a surprisingly gentle voice. "We help. Dean, calm down," he says to the shorter man. Mine, the metal under her hands seems to sing, and the TARDIS understands exactly. She removes her hands and turns to face them, smiling. Not-Mine smiles back and asks, "What's wrong?"
"My Doctor is missing," she says, "and I need your magic to find him."
The one called Mine, or perhaps Dean, turns a bit red. "Your magic? Lady - "
"Sexy."
Dean looks like his face is too small to contain all his feelings, but the TARDIS recognizes the way humans express frustration. It's endearing. "Clearly you need a doctor, but we don't do magic."
"Dean."
"Sam! She's on my car. And look at her! She looks like a crazy person! Who are you?" directing the last statement back at the TARDIS and resting hand on his hip.
"I borrowed this," the TARDIS replies. "It's Halloween, it's a costume, right? You - " She waves her hand at them and frowns. Even Not-Mine is letting suspicion overcome the compassion in his eyes. She runs her hand over the hood of the car and exhales. She nods. "Wrong, right. Wrong people, right magic. I won't bother you anymore tonight."
"Wait, ma'am, come in," Not-Mine (also mine, she's told to understand, Sam) says, indicating the open door behind them. Dean looks like he'd rather spit nails, but at Sam's urging she leaves the magic and follows them into Riverside Motel. There's a dingy chair and she would rather go back outside where the air is clean. Something inside her begins to throb, the pain just so. "Tell us about your doctor. Were you... close?"
"We've been together for 700 years. He belongs to me. He calls me sexy," she adds, looking out the window. The car is just one of a dozen in the parking lot, but can no one see how different it is? "I stole him." The boys share a look - Sam looks curious and Dean looks frustrated and the TARDIS taps her foot on the carpet. She stares at them until she really understands - and then she does. Time moves around them in a very special, almost broken, way. "You aren't normal."
Dean looks affronted, but Sam puts a hand on his shoulder. "We specialize in the weird. Can we take you anywhere? Do you have somewhere to go?"
The TARDIS nods. "Of course. I can go anywhere. Thank you for your time, boys. I'm sure we'll meet again." She grins and stands, twirling on her toe and making an exit. Her Doctor always did that. Big entrance, big exit, don't let them forget. You're dead when they forget. She closes the door behind her, and immediately the boys begin to argue. The curtains are closed, but their voices are loud.
Not far away, off to the TARDIS' left, a door opens. The woman who peers around the corner of the frame is perfect, and the TARDIS rushes forward to put a hand on her face. Yes, absolutely - if there is such a fickle thing as Fate, this is her. Fate and Time rushing off to save the world. The woman starts to rear back, but then settles into the touch. The TARDIS smiles, just a little breathless. "Can I borrow you?"
The woman, with her dark hair and intense eyes and strong muscles, looks back into an empty hotel room before nodding. The TARDIS hates to waste any more of the life she has left, but this is necessary. The woman's eyes flutter shut, but she remains upright. The TARDIS pulls her by the wrist over to the car. Their hands entwined, the TARDIS pressed their palms to the cool metal of the hood. "Well, darling, looks like it's going to be me and you. The two most important vehicles in all the universe, isn't that right? I can feel you alive under all this metal. I'm wood. I understand. Come on out. Don't want you to have an adventure?"
She has to help it along, but it hardly takes any coaxing at all before she feels the tingling in her hands. She can't see the soul move, but she can feel it. The change in the woman's eyes when they open again confirms it. The woman licks her lips and stares at their hands before looking up at the TARDIS. "I don't understand," and her voice is velvety and quiet. She draws her hand away slowly, her skin rough as their fingers drag together. The TARDIS shivers and composes herself. She's never had to compose herself before.
"Don't worry, Baby - that's your name, Baby? I'm Sexy. Look at you. You are the most important thing in this world, aren't you? I'm afraid I don't have much time. This world is breaking. We need to find the Doctor."
"We can't just leave," the Impala says, staring at the dead metal where her soul once lived. "He's going to be angry."
The TARDIS smirks. "I'm sure. But it's an adventure! You love a good adventure, don't you?"
A devilish glint to her eye, the Impala nods. "Since the day I was built."
Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Epilogue